K+S Potash moves to commission Legacy mine

K+S Potash moves to commission project

Legacy assures future: company

Just over a month after a major accident derailed K+S Potash Canada’s plan to bring its Legacy solution mine into production by the end of the year, the company has begun commissioning the massive $4.1 billion potash project.

“Legacy will make an important contribution to the future viability of K+S,” Ralf Bethke, chairman of the supervisory board of K+S AG, K+S Potash Canada’s parent company, said in a statement.

“The new plant will ensure that the company has access to highgrade resources for generations and will strengthen the position of K+S on the international potash market sustainably.”

Bethke, K+S AG Chairman Norbert Steiner and K+S Potash Canada president and CEO Ulrich Lamp “pressed the start button” this week during a visit to the site near Bethune, the company said in a news release.

The Legacy project’s commissioning comes about four weeks after the structure supporting a 28-metre-tall crystallizer collapsed, causing the massive pressure vessel to plummet to the floor of the mine’s main production facility.

“It could have been a lot worse,” a pipefitter who worked on the project before being fired for posting about the incident on social media told the Saskatoon StarPhoenix at the time, adding that everyone working in the area was fortunate to escape unscathed.

K+S AG said two weeks ago that the accident delayed the mine’s first production by about six months, to the second quarter of 2017.

However, the company maintains it will reach its target production capacity of two million tonnes by the end of next year.

In a news release, the company said about 4,000 construction workers are completing the mine’s surface facilities while 54 caverns, each as large as a football stadium, are being mined in all of the project’s six well fields.